Any child that transitions from a crawling position to one towering on two feet is beginning to understand the art of walking. Children start to learn how to walk anywhere between 8 to 14 months. In the process of this learning, the walking is unsteady and the child toddles. A toddler is a young child ranging in age from 10 months to 24 months.
The transition from crawling to walking is filled with mishaps, errors, poor judgment and poor foot placement that cause the toddler to fall onto the ground. At the same time, the transition must be exciting and exhilarating since the toddler never gives up in their determination to walk. There is a driving sprit in the toddler to master the art of walking.
A number of the toddlers require a “grip” to hold onto while they are learning to stand erect and walk. A grip is defined as a physical structure that has characteristics that allow the small hands of a toddler to grab, hold, or support themselves before they have a chance to fall. The toddlers begin to start taking steps and use this grip to maintain their balance as they begin mastering the art of walking.
One grip can be the finger of a parent. The toddler wraps their fingers around the finger of a parent to stand erect. This is probably the best loving grip for the toddler to use while learning to walk. As the toddler moves, the grip moves with the toddler. The toddler develops a strong dependence that the grip is always going to be there, allowing the toddler to concentrate more on the art of walking.
A recent report printed 20 Jan. 2010 in the Journal Of Neurophysiology entitled “Kinematic Strategies in Newly Walking Toddlers Stepping Over Different Support Surfaces”, by Dominici et al. indicates that “ . . . in each toddler we tried to implement unsupported stepping over an obstacle in such a way that an experimenter initially held the toddler by hand and tried to leave the toddler's hand while approaching the obstacle. In all such trials, toddlers stopped before the obstacle or attempted to touch and held again the hand of the experimenter. Thus since unsupported stepping was never successful in situations with obstacles, . . . ” The studies of toddlers stepping over obstacles is very limited. The study attempted to have the toddler step unsupported over obstacles without success since the child require support. The experimenters were required to hold the toddler by one hand to negotiate the obstacles.
Often, the toddler will also experiment independently and seek to develop the art of walking on their own by using local stable inanimate objects that appear to have sufficient height. After crawling to the object, the toddlers hand seeks the “grips” of this local object. Some examples of inanimate objects that can provide a grip include a wall, a table edge and top, a chair seat and back, a sofa, a piece of folded fabric of their parent's pants and a bed.
An object that provides a grip for a long horizontal run at an appropriate constant height from the ground is extremely beneficial and is called a horizontal grip (for example, the top surface of a coffee table). Such a grip is advantageously useful for the toddler when learning to walk because the toddler can then began to take steps either knowing that the grip is readily available in case the toddler faults in their steps or if the toddler always requires the support of the grip while taking their first steps. The height from the ground for the location of the grip is anywhere between the hip and the shoulder height of the toddler.
Another important aspect to develop in the art of walking is determining what to do with obstacles in the path. One option is to go around the obstacle if it is too large; however, if the obstacle is relatively small maybe the toddler will attempt to raise their foot over the obstacle. Succeeding the ability to step over obstacles brings the toddler that much closer to mastering the art of walking.